Live and Love
by Lady Callista
Summary: Just a quiet night between two people in love. Memories of the past, and talk of the future. One-shot. Pairing: Toshiro/Karin. Series: After The Winter War. Set during chapter 9 of "Until the Last Breath."


Disclaimer: Kubo is god, Kubo is king, Tite Kubo owns everything. (Well, him and everyone associated with Bleach manga/anime.) I own nothing but my own storyline. If I owned them, there would be more actual romance instead of just hints of it.

AN: Yet another one-shot, because otherwise over half of this would have been part of Chapter 9 of Until The Last Breath, and since that is primarily an IchiHime story I decided this cuteness needed to be its own story. I just started writing a bit for them to finish up their involvement with something in that story and it turned into over 1500 words. At which point I said I just need to write even more of them and make it its own story. And this way I know HitsuKarin lovers will find it, even if they don't read my other stuff.

This is part of the 'After The Winter War' series, but like the other fics in the series you don't need to have read anything else to understand this. The only things you really need to know is that Karin died, but went to Seireitei with all her memories intact and is currently a student at the academy. Her zanpakuto is called Kyokon, which means Mirror Soul, and it allows her to hear and speak to other people's zanpakuto. Her and Toshiro have been dating since soon after the war ended, although she only died recently. Oh, and the secret she let slide is that Gin was actually on the good side and did it all for Ran, which happened differently in my world and was not common knowledge. Okay, that's actually kinda a lot. Maybe you should have read at least a few of the other stories to get full enjoyment out of this. Sorry. Hope no one gets too confused. Also, not much of a plot. Just cuteness. I might have had too much caffeine today. And on that insanely long note, enjoy!

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><p><span>Live and Love<span>

By Lady Callista

_OoOoOoOoOoOoO_

"_I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not." _

_Robert G. Ingersoll _

_OoOoOoOoOoOoO_

"But I really should have better control by now. I promise that I'll practice more, and that…"

"Karin, enough." Toshiro said softly as they flashed into being on his front porch. "I told you that it's okay."

"But… Wait, we're here already?" Karin trailed off as she looked around and noticed that he currently held open the front door of the house for her.

Toshiro nodded as they moved into the entryway and removed their waraji. "You followed me, and unlike in the past I did not have to take your hand to guide you. You sensed both the length and direction of my steps, and your followed. You did this completely unconsciously because you were so involved in the conversation."

Karin's eyes widened in shock, and before she could help herself she whispered, "How fast?"

Toshiro gave her a small smile. "I was probably at about two-thirds my normal speed. Last week you could barely keep up at half speed, and you lost me twice."

"We've been working on shunpo a lot this past week." Karin admitted.

"Which is why you lost a little ground with Kyokon. You've had more important things to focus on. Karin, when you were human, you only had one power to concentrate on." Toshiro said as he rubbed a hand up and down her back comfortingly. "Now you're learning shunpo, and kido, and sword forms, as well as having to learn how to use Kyokon now that she's manifested as a zanpakuto. You have to make time for a boyfriend that demands as much of your time as possible."

Karin gave a slight chuckle and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment.

"You're making wonderful progress, but there's a lot to learn."

Karin blushed at his praise, replying softly, "I should never say out loud things Kyokon lets me hear by accident. That's what I should learn."

"I…" Toshiro paused, reconsidering what he was about to say. Then continued with his original thought as Karin met his eyes challengingly. "I do wish she hadn't found out that way, but I can't say I'm sorry she knows. I hated having to keep that from her."

"You could have told _me_, I mean if you needed to talk about it." Karin replied, her voice still soft. "Plus if I had known then I wouldn't have let something like that slip."

"He didn't want anyone to know." Toshiro echoed his words from earlier in the day, adding, "I never actually promised, but it was his dying wish and all."

"And you wanted to honor it." Karin nodded slightly in understanding.

Toshiro sank onto the couch and pulled her down to cuddle against him. "I figured, if I ever did tell anyone, that it should be Ran-chan."

"Do you have any other secrets I should know about?" Karin asked as she linked her arms around his waist and snuggled in against him more closely. "Anything else I could ruin?"

"Other than what you found out tonight, I have only ever kept one secret from you. Only ever lied to you once. And you found out the truth of that when you first arrived in Seireitei."

"The memories thing?" Karin questioned.

"Yes." Toshiro replied softly, then sighed and added, "And I suppose one other thing, although it was not a lie but an omission. I knew your father had been a Shinigami. Before he fell in love with your mother, before he was kicked out of Seireitei for loving her, he was the taicho of the Juubantai."

Karin pulled back from him enough to see his face, amazement showing on her own. "I kinda figured out that he stopped being a Shinigami cause of mom, but I assumed it was his choice."

Toshiro chuckled. "It was, in a way. His choice was between never seeing her again, and being exiled down to Earth. That would have been the choice I was given if anyone except Momo and Rangiku had ever found out what I was doing."

"He always acted like such an idiot." Karin whispered. "I never would have thought he was a taicho, or that he loved mom enough to…"

"I would have chosen as he did." Toshiro whispered when she trailed off. "I would have missed my friends, and I would have hated living on Earth and being treated as a child. But it would have been unbearable to live without you."

Her heart melting, Karin leaned in to kiss him softly before cuddling back against his chest. "I feel the same way."

Toshiro rested his cheek against her hair. "I have never kept anything from you, other than those three things. Two I was bound by law to not tell you, and the third I was bound by honor."

"I'm glad there is nothing else I shouldn't know that I can accidentally find out, but I still feel bad when Kyokon does things like that. It's one thing when I'm practicing with someone, when they know I'm trying to hear them, but when it just happens randomly I feel like a peeping-tom."

"I don't mind." Toshiro replied, his hands trailing absently up and down her back. "He is a part of me, and I don't need to keep any part of me from you. Hyorinmaru actually misses Kyokon talking to him, as do I."

"Yeah, I haven't gotten that part down yet. It was so easy when I was a human, but Kyokon seems to work differently now that I'm here." Karin replied, then paused as his last three words registered. "Wait, you miss it? Are you saying _you _could hear _me_?"

"No, I could not hear your thoughts, just as you cannot hear mine, only Hyorinmaru's. And no, I did not hear Kyokon. But every once and a while, it seemed like I could feel your emotions when you were talking to him, probably because sometimes he would tell me what you were saying. It was like I could feel your love for me" Toshiro admitted softly.

Karin leaned up and kissed him gently. "I'll have to put more effort into it then."

Toshiro's hand slid around to the back of her neck to claim a longer, deeper kiss.

"Do you ever wish you were still human?" Toshiro asked softly a moment later, when they had pulled apart enough to catch their breaths.

Karin's eyes widened in shock. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because I see the look in your eyes every time Ichigo visits; I see how much you miss him. And I know you miss Orihime, and the rest of your family and friends." Toshiro said softly, his eyes taking on a far away look. "You'll never get to go to college, or choose a career, or…."

"Shhh." Karin laid her fingers gently over his lips, drawing his attention back to her. "What's the Shinigami Academy if not a college? Being a Shinigami is a career, one I chose even when I was human and one I think I'll be good at. My family and friends… well, I'll still get to see them sometimes. And I can be happy without them."

"Karin…"

He tried to speak when she paused, but she only shook her head and leaned in to kiss him again, whispering against his lips, "Now ask me if I could be happy without you."

"What did I ever do to deserve you?"

Karin smirked. "Well, you are still the only guy who can beat me at soccer."

Toshiro let out a soft chuckle at her attempt to lighten the mood. Although she was much more comfortable accepting compliments about her looks or personality than she used to be, there were still times when a mood grew too romantic or serious for her. Despite all her life experiences, and her innate maturity, she was only 14 after all. And he was…

Going with the lightness she was trying to create, Toshiro obliquely brought up something they never really talked about. "Well, I've got about a hundred years of practice on you."

Karin chuckled as she cuddled back in against his chest, her fingers beginning to trail unconsciously up and down his collarbone and the side of his neck. "It always seems like that should feel odd. You've lived, like, seven times as long as I have. You could be my great-grandfather. Or that perverted old sensei in all the anime. Or…"

"Karin, your point?" Toshiro interrupted with a soft growl that caused to her start chuckling again.

"It should feel odd." Karin repeated. "But it never does. I mean, it helps that you don't look that much older than me, but I don't think it would matter to me if you did. I have no idea how much older than mom my dad was. But I don't think either of them cared. I think Ichi-nii would have fallen in love with Orihime no matter how young or old she was. It's about who you are, not how old you are."

Toshiro let out a soft sigh of relief. "It felt odd to me in the very beginning. But even though it felt odd, I couldn't stay away from you. I tried. And then one night, it just stopped feeling odd, and started feeling right. We kissed for the first time that night."

Karin smiled at the memory. "Kyokon had just spoken with Hyorinmaru for the first time, and then we both confessed that we liked each other." She pulled away from him as she spoke until she sat beside him, the only contact between them their laced fingers.

He looked confused for only an instant, and then Toshiro reached out and softly brushed the fingers of his other hand over her cheek before slowly leaning down to kiss her, their positions and movements a recreation of their first kiss.

"I believe you then said this was impossible." Karin said with an almost impish giggle.

Toshiro pulled back slightly, his eyes widening in shock as his eyebrows almost vanished into his hair at a sound he didn't think he would ever hear from his girlfriend.

He couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping his lips as he murmured, "I am wrong, on occasion." And then he slid his hand back around to cup her neck and draw her back into a kiss.

"I hate to say this," He whispered when they pulled apart to breath, "But I should get you back to the dorms. I know you have sword training soon after sunrise tomorrow."

"I don't wanna go." Karin moaned, sinking back against his chest. "It was so nice to get to spend a whole day with you. We haven't had a whole day together in weeks, and a whole night in even longer. Which sounds silly when I remember that for the first two years we were together I only saw you once a month, but then I had those weeks where we were together all the time, and I miss falling asleep in your arms., and…"

"Well, Ichigo and Orihime are staying overnight, I'm sure the academy would let you skip a day if it was to spend time with your brother." Toshiro smiled as he cut off her babbling. She so very rarely babbled that it was incredibly cute when she did. "And I'm sure he and Orihime would enjoy it as well."

Karin nodded eagerly, and rose with him to go to the bedroom.

They set up the futon, and Karin was about to kneel beside it to start putting on the sheets when Toshiro put a hand on her arm. "Our shihakusho are not exactly comfortable to sleep in, but every time you stay here unplanned that's what you do. I thought it made sense for you to have some things here."

Karin cocked her head curiously, and he merely gestured towards the closet.

Karin walked into it, seeing several new garments folded on one of the shelves that had been cleared of everything else.

There were three yukata. One was simply a cerulean blue, a small white diamond pattern decorating it. The second was red, and the third a shade of green almost exactly the color of his eyes.

Then her eyes fell on the kimono. She pulled it out of its box immediately to see the complete design. It was the color of the summer sky on the most beautiful, perfect day. Sakura trees rose up from the bottom, their petals scattered over the entire kimono, and cranes flew gracefully over the top of the back. The obi was as pink as the sakura, and had yet more cranes in flight.

Refolding the kimono after she wasn't sure quite how long, Karin quickly changed into the emerald yukata, realizing with embarrassment that she had been admiring the kimono for longer than she thought. For when she exited the closet the futon was fully made, his uniform folded neatly at the head of it. He stood in a comfortably worn dark blue yukata, staring out the open window into the quiet night.

"The kimono is very beautiful, but…."

"And the obi?" Toshiro questioned without turning around.

"It's… well, it's just stunning, but Shiro…" Karin took a few steps closer to him.

"I'm not sure you'll ever get to wear it." There was a wistful tone in his voice. "We don't really have many parties like that up here. I wish I had found this before Rangiku's wedding. I had been looking, but…. I found this just yesterday. And the instant I saw it I knew how beautiful you would look in it."

Karin crossed the room to him, wrapping her arms around him as she rested her head in the hollow between his shoulder blades. "I'll find a reason to wear it. Even if it's just for you. But I don't know how to tie the obi. Yuzu always did mine…"

Toshiro chuckled, and his hands came up to cover hers where they rested on his stomach. "I believe Rangiku knows."

They stood in comfortable silence for a few moments before Karin said softly, "I'm glad Ichi-nii stayed up here. Because I know what he means when he says mom died because of him. But I don't understand why he said she died to protect him."

"You've never told me how your mother died." Toshiro offered hesitantly.

Karin shuddered slightly. "Can we lay down first? I want you holding me while I tell you."

Toshiro turned to face her, pulling her into his arms in a tender hug. "I'll never say no if you ask me to hold you." He whispered the promise in her ear, the heat of his breath and the intensity in his voice causing a shiver to roll down her spine.

And so they climbed into bed together, and he held her in his arms while she told him a sad story.

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><p>The End<p>

AN2: See, told you it was plotless. Damn those plot bunnies. And now hopefully back to Until the Last Breath now that this is out of the way. Reviews greatly appreciated, as is constructive critism. And no, OpheliaImmortal, telling me my one-shots suck because you dislike that parts of main stories take longer to come out because I'm writing one-shots does not count as constructive critism. Your reverse psychology does not work on me, girlie! Love ya though. A few of our talks are the reason Until the Last Breath got through the writer's block I had on it. And I just reread the middle sentance of this paragraph. I have _definitly_ had too much caffeine today.


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